14 things to do in a relationship
by GeekyChic123
Summary: I saw a list of 14 things everyone should do in a relationship, and turned it into a Clintasha fic :D Please check it out! I think this will be a really good story! Lot's of fluff!
1. Chapter 1

So I saw this random thing on Tumblr a couple days ago, it was a little thing called "14 Things To Do In A Relationship" and I read it, tried to keep scrolling down through my dashboard, and couldn't stop thinking about it. So, I scrolled back up, and read it again. Then I realized it would make a PERFECT Clintasha fic! So, here it is! Enjoy!

Rule Number One- Kiss like you mean it.

The rest of the team had noticed the way Clint and Natasha kissed one another. They never did a quick peck on the cheek, or casual kiss where their lips met and parted without pause or emotion. Every single time that they kissed- You just knew it meant something. You could see how every kiss mattered, and none were taken for granted.

Once Natasha was sitting in the living room with Steve, arguing about what movie to watch. It was always hard to pick something when it was just the two of them. Even though there were many awesome films Steve had never seen, the entire team usually wanted to be there when Captain America first watched movies like Star Was or a Bugs Life. So they were scrolling through Stark's collection, trying to find something other members had not expressed interest in watching with Steve.

"How about Harry Potter?" Natasha suggested, "I don't think anyone's thought about that yet. So they would be mad you watched it without them, but at least we could claim they didn't tell you NOT to watch it without them."

Steve shook his head. "No, I'm reading the books now I want to finish those firstt….." Natasha glanced at him. "What one are you on now?" He thought for a minute. "I think it's called Blood Prince? Half Blood Prince? Something like that.' Natasha raised her eyebrows knowingly. "Aaah, good luck with that one." Steve glanced at her, wondering why she would say that,and was about to ask, but she was already naming off more movies.

"Jaws?" He shook his head. "Stark already claimed that one." "Indiana Jones?" "Nope, Stark again." "The Hunger Games?" "No, don't you remember Stark made ALL of us watch that, and then called Barton, Katniss for a month."

Natasha smirked knowingly. "Oh yeah, that was fun. We should watch the sequel so Tony starts using that nickname again, I love how it drives Clint crazy." As if one cue the archer walked into the room.

"What? Who's driving me crazy and why?" He asked, walking in when pulling his jacket on. Natasha smiled sweetly at him. "No one's driving you crazy, we're just talking about the next team movie night. Talking about a movie I know you just LOVE watching with Stark."

Clint frowned. "Lord of the Rings? Brave? Some new movie about kids running away and joining the circus?" Natasha laughed, "No, none of those, but thanks for giving us some ideas! We were actually talking about Hunger Games. We need to watch the new sequel." The archer grimaced. "Come on, I hated the last one, it was garbage. And after we watched it Iron Idiot only called me Katniss, or The Guy on Fire for like a month. And besides, that girl is totally not shooting her bow right. It drives me crazy."

Natasha threw a pillow at him. "Oh, shut up, you know you loved the first movie, you just don't want to watch it with Stark. You love the Hunger Games, remember when you bought all the books and stayed up all night until you had read all of them?"

Steve failed to stifle his laughter. "Really Clint? You told me those books were written for teenage girls, who wanted to read about love triangles and hot guys fighting each other to the death over them." Clint groaned dramatically, "Thanks Nat, you just revealed my one weakness to Captain America over here! You know he can't keep a secret like that!"

Now Natasha was laughing. "Oh, is THAT your biggest weakness? What about the TV show you like to watch? What was it called again? I think it involves high school kids and singing, the name of the show starts with a G…" Clint looked totally serious now. "Natasha, NO, STOP! Don't do this! Jarvis will hear, and tell Tony, and then I'll never hear the end of it!"

She was still smirking when she spoke, and Steve wondered what show Clint would be so embarrassed about watching. "Fine Barton, I won't give away your pathetic TV watching habits. You have to help us pick a movie though. We need to find something that is amazing, not boring, not stupid, and that the rest of the team hasn't already insisted Steve watch with them."

Clint was standing behind the couch now, he leaned down over it and wrapped his arms around Nat's shoulders. The two of them started bouncing movie ideas off each other, as Steve continued clicking through the collection downloaded onto the TV screen. "A Disney film?" "No, we're supposed to save all of those until Thor comes next time." "Um, Jaws?" "I thought of that, Stark already claimed it." "Princess Bride?"

Natasha's eyebrows shot up at this title "Hey, that could be a good one! Steve, has anyone ordered you to not watch that movie without them?" She asked, already grabbing the controller from the soldiers grip and tapping in the title of the movie. "Um, I don't think so. What's it about?"

Clint spoke up. "Oh, the usual. Pirates, sword fighting, fire swamps, rats of enormous size, cliffs of insanity and true love." Steve glanced back to see if the archer was joking, but he looked very serious. "Um, ok. Sure, let's watch that it sounds fun. You in?"

Clint shook his head. "Nah, I gotta go. I'm gonna be late if I don't hurry. I only stopped in here to say bye." Natasha turned towards him, and smiled. "Ok…. Bye then."

Clint moved towards her, she shifted on the couch to get closer to him, and they met in an intense kiss. It wasn't like they were making out or anything- But it was like all of their kisses. You could just see how it meant something to them. it was important. it was special. It meant something.

Steve tactfully stared at the Tv as the assassins said goodbye to each other, and wondered how long Barton was going to be gone for this time. Probably for a while based on the emotion going on in the kiss next to him…..

Clint stood up, and gave Steve a mock salute. "Captain. See ya around!" And then he was gone. Natasha lounged back on the couch, and was getting the movie ready. Steve was googling the movie on his phone, to try and get a clearer idea of what it might be about. "So, how long will Barton be gone?" He asked. "Or is that classified?"

Natasha smirked at him. "What? No, he's just going to Headquarters to report back on that job he had last week. Remember, with the stolen jewels and poison gas that weirdo was making?" Steve stared at her in disbelief. "Really? So, he's going to be back by tonight?" She nodded and looked at the soldier curiously. "Yeah. Why do you care? Do you actually like having the idiot around now? Told you he'd grow on you when he wasn't brainwashed by a vengeful demigod."

Steve laughed, "No! I just would have thought he was going to be away for a while." Natasha was scrolling through Tony's movies, still looking for Princess Bride, but now she stopped and turned towards Steve. "Really? Why would you think that?"

Steve froze. He shouldn't have brought this up, he couldn't exactly say he had guessed Barton was going on a long mission just based on the way the two assassins had just kissed….. Their relationship was not exactly a secret, but it also wasn't something they exactly loved discussing with the rest of the team.

"Uh, um, well- I don't know. I guess he goes away a lot so I assumed he had another mission…. And I guess based on the way you said goodbye to each other…." Natasha just stared at him. "What, really? We just kissed. People do that all the time now here in the 21rst century Captain Grandpa." Steve knew she was just teasing him, so he smiled, accepting the joke.

"No, gosh, I know that. I'm not an idiot- in spite of what Stark might think sometimes…. I mean, that wasn't just a kiss. It was like the kind of kiss you give someone if you are going to see them for the last time!"

Steve meant for that part to sound light and sarcastic, then it felt like he was punched in the gut as he remembered the last time he saw Peggy, right before he flew that plane into the ocean. The first and last time that he kissed her. He didn't feel like joking now, and wished he hadn't even asked about where Clint was going. Who cares? It was all stupid. He saw from the way Natasha's face moved that she understood that what he'd just said had upset him. But instead of changing the subject,  
she tried to explain.

"I don't think I would say we kissed as if we were never going to see each other again. We don't do that- We can't do that. Can't let ourselves live like that, always feeling like we are never seeing the other again. We're in a dangerous line of work Captain, and if every time one of us went out on a job alone- if every time we went out on a job period, and we thought about how one of us could be dead before the day is out, we wouldn't be able to handle it. It would be impossible to build any kind of relationship if every other week we obsessed over how one of us could die on some stupid mission."

Natasha sighed, and closed her eyes. "But I guess we are more….. Emotional in our relationship than others might be. We don't live in fear, thinking every day about how the other might die- But that possibility is always there, even if we try not to think about it. I guess it still seeps into our everyday life. It's like we don't want to admit it might be the last time we see each other- but that's ALWAYS there. It always will be. I guess that makes everything we do mean more, if that makes sense. It makes me appreciate every moment I have with him, even when we are fighting or he's driving me crazy. It makes me want to be with him as much as I can, it makes every kiss mean something to both of us."

She opened her eyes, and turned her head towards Steve he was silently listening. "I don't know, I'm just babbling now. Ignore me. I don't know what I'm saying." Natasha laughed at her own words, but her face looked so serious Steve knew she has just exposed a part of herself to him that she usually kept hidden, and now she was feeling vulnerable for saying so much. So he just smiled at her.

"Oh, it's fine. I won't tell anyone. I'd be more worried about Jarvis telling Tony about what you said, and then he would start joking about you two again." Steve said, smirking, only partially joking. Natasha really smiled now. "Oh, don't worry about that. Jarvis and I have a deal." She raised her voice slightly. "Don't we?"

The computer spoke. "Indeed we do. Agent Romanoff informed me when she moved into the apartment that if I spied on her for Mr. Stark or reported any sensitive information to him, that she would corrupt my entire system with a rather nasty virus that she invented. It is really quite something, I am sure it could destroy me rather quickly."

Steve lifted an eyebrow. "You're blackmailing a computer?" Natasha sighed dramatically. "I wish I could say it is one of the weirdest things I've ever done, but I'd be lying."

Steve accepted this without question, and laughed. "Ok. So,can you start the movie?" Natasha smiled at him, and picked up the controller. "As you wish!"

(FYI That last part was not Natasha secretly telling Steve she loves him like how in the Princess Bride movie Wesley always says "As you wish" to Buttercup, but really means "I love you". I just thought that would be a fun way to end this chapter :D Please review! The next chapter is going to be sooooo adorable! Or really super sad. There are two directions the chapter could go, I have not decided yet….. What do you guys want? Happy adorable fluff, or super sad stuff? PLEASE REVIEW!


	2. Chapter 2

Remember their birthday, every year.

I could not decide if I wanted to write about Clint's Birthday or Nat's, and then if I wanted to make it happy or sad. So, I did all of that! Please enjoy!

First year of their partnership, Clint's Birthday.

He hardly even remembered it was his own Birthday. It wasn't like he made it out to be a giant holiday in his life, it was pretty much just another day for him. Clint just happened to glance at the date, and realized he was another year older. To celebrate he went down to the target range to practice, just like he did every morning.

He had already emptied a quiver-full of arrows into a few targets, and was just starting in on the next quiver when she came in. Clint guessed who it was, because no one else would have been able to get so close before he sensed that they were there. As if to confirm that Natasha was behind him, suddenly a knife was whistling past his ear and landed in the center of a target he hadn't fired at yet.

"What, you couldn't have hit one of the arrows?" Clint joked, not turning around, preparing to let loose his next missile. Without another word a second knife was flying through the air, and then clattered to the ground- after cracking one of his arrows clean in half. The two halts were still stuck in the target

He turned around now, to see his still relatively new partner smirking at him. Her flaming hair was a tangled mess around her face, it looked like she hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Again. One of the few things he had managed to learn about his partner in their time together was that her sleep schedule was erratic at best. She went to bed late, and woke up early. He had tried telling her to sleep more, but she never listened to him.

"Good morning." Clint said, placing down his quiver, and grabbing another that had a new kind of arrow Coulson wanted him to test. "Did you actually sleep, or where you up shining your knives?" "No, I spent the night cleaning my guns actually." He glanced at her, and couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

"You should really sleep more." He said. She rolled her eyes, "Yeah? And you should stop trying to tell me what to do. You should know that doesn't work by now." Clint sighed dramatically. "I guess I thought you would listen to my wise, genius advice for once…." "What, just because it's your Birthday?"

Clint was so surprised he almost dropped his bow. "What? Who the heck told you that?" Natasha scoffed. "No one. I hacked your records when we started working together, and for some moronic reason happened to remember when your Birthday was. Duh." She said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world, like he should have known she would do that.

Ok, he had suspected she had done that anyway. He was just surprised that out of all the information Shield had about him, she had remembered his Birthday of all things. No one did that. Even Coulson had forgotten a couple years ago. Not that Clint had cared about that, Birthdays were stupid. Who needed them? Not him. Cakes and presents were overrated.

"I could tell Fury on you, that's a major violation of privacy." Clint smirked. Natasha just ignored him. "So do you have any big Birthday plans bird brain?" She asked, walking towards him, and running a hand over the different bows and arrows laid across the table next to Clint. "I don't know. Did Coulson tell you that we have a mission today?"

She shook her head. Clint smirked. "Then nope, I have no plans for the day. Why, are you doing anything?"Natasha ran her fingers over one of the bows, for a second it looked like she was going to pick it up and shoot. He had offered to teach her before, and wished she would try and learn. He was sure The Black Widow would be a natural archer.

Clint really thought she was about to pick the bow up, then she pulled her hand away. "I was going to get some breakfast, and then go shopping for an outfit for that undercover mission…" She glanced at her partner. "Would you want to come? I'll buy you food."

Barton paused, about to shoot another arrow. "Will you make the waitresses sing Happy Birthday to me?" "No, Clint, I won't." The arrow hit it's target "Ok, then let's go."

_

Third year of their partnership, Natasha's Birthday.

Clint Barton was in deep, DEEP trouble. Nat had told him not to go in on this job alone, she had told him she would be able to work even with the not yet healed bullet wound in her shoulder. He should have listened to her. Maybe if he'd had some backup, he wouldn't be in a prison right now, probably about to be dragged back into another brutal interrogation session.

He had just been "interviewed" for maybe the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? He'd lost count after they started really beating up on him. And now Clint was in a filthy cell, trying to staunch the blood flowing from a cut in his arm, and see out of a swollen black eye. He couldn't think about how much everything hurt right now. Couldn't think about what tactics they would use on him next, couldn't think about when Shield would come get him- Couldn't think about IF they were going to come get him. Of course they would. He was important! Right? It wasn't like they had hundreds of top notch archers they could choose from… And besides, Natasha would make sue SOMEONE came to save him. Hopefully.

Natasha. He would think about her, that would help distract him. The way she looked in a fight, like she could defeat anything. Like she was fearless. He would think about the way that her hair looked like fire as it flew around her face when they trained together, and how it looked so untamed all the time. Even when she was sleeping, it looked wild and uncontrollable. Not that he saw her sleeping all that often, just a few times when they had to share a room on missions- or that one time on the way back from one when she fell asleep against his shoulder. He thought about that, how she trusted him enough to fall asleep against him.

Footsteps thudded outside of Clint's door, and he wondered if they were going to bring him back in for another interrogation again so quickly. He wouldn't be able to handle that. No, of course he could. He'd been trained for this. He shouldn't think about that. Think about Natasha.

He had been here two days now, and the mission had been a hellish two weeks- So if he had his dates right….. Yup, it was his partners Birthday today. He felt a stab of pain course through him as he realized this. They always celebrated each other's Birthdays. He had wanted to take her somewhere fun this year. Maybe an arcade, or make her go bowling, at least he wanted to drag her to a fancy restaurant and buy her some cake. But now he couldn't do any of that. He was stuck rotting in this putrid cell, and she was probably worried sick about him. Or at the very least maybe she was just slightly worried. He was pretty sure she was mildly concerned.

Clint had to distract himself from all of this, the stress, the fear, the pain, the footsteps and noise outside of his locked door. He sat down on the floor, his back against the door. There was dust, and grime, and who knows what else on the floor. It was beyond disgusting, but it would provide Clint with a distraction. He began running his finger through the filth, sketching the outline of a cake. He spent the next- ten minutes? Hour? Few hours? Designing the perfect birthday cake for Natasha. He drew it and redrew it. Adding candles, and taking them away when he realized he was unsure about her exact age- She had a complicated past, the Red Room didn't exactly celebrate Birthdays. He tried to draw flowers on it, and then realized he couldn't draw flowers. So then he tried drawing polka dots, spiders and hawks, guns, then he realized he couldn't draw. So he just put random scribbles on the cake for decoration.

He had just about finished the drawing, when he realized the sounds behind his door were getting even louder. He recognized the sound of gun shots, and- were those explosions? What the hell was going on? Should he do someth-"

Suddenly he heard an explosion, so close to him Clint could feel it through the door he was leaning against. And then suddenly he was falling backwards, and he was laying on the filthy ground. And staring up at Natasha. She was staring down at him,, and once she saw he was alive, looked relieved. Clint grinned up at her, though he was sure that only made his bruised and beaten up face look even worse than it actually was.

He couldn't think of anything to say, so he just said the first thing that popped into his head. "Hey, Happy Birthday Nat!"

_

Fourth Year of their relationship. Clint's Birthday.

Natasha walked down the hallway with a gift bag in one hand, a small bright pink pastry box in the other. She had a serious look on her face, and everyone else in the hallway moved out of her way as soon as they saw her coming. She finally got to Clint's room, and after checking out the file clipped to his door, walked inside.

"Hey Barton, good morning. And Happy Birthday. I know how you love celebrating things, so here I am. Ready for some Birthday fun?" She asked, knowing she wouldn't get an answer. The archer had been hurt on their last mission together, and been put in a medically induced coma. The Dr's kept telling Natasha they were pretty sure he would be fine when they woke him up. And that they were almost absolutely sure he WOULD wake up. It was that tiny little bit of doubt that had Natasha terrified though.

She had refused all of the missions Fury and Coulson kept trying to push on her, and visited Clint every day. Even though Shield visiting hours for patients were supposed to be a half hour in the morning, and hour at night, Natasha managed to see him much more than that. Having most everyone in Shield be terrified of you had its benefits. Natasha practically had the run of the hospital sector of Shield by now.

Clint was still in the hospital bed- of course. He had tubes, and wires, and bandages covering him linking him to the machines helping to keep him alive. Natasha tried to smile when she entered his room, even though he couldn't see her. He would want her to be happy, maybe if she tried to be, Clint would sense that and want to wake up.

"Hey Barton, Happy Birthday. I was hoping you'd be awake for this, but the Dr's told me they weren't going to take you off the meds for a few more days. Something about wanting to make sure your stupid brain was healthy enough, and got enough rest- I guess it's just as lazy as the rest of your body, and wants to get more sleep. Though I should know it doesn't do that much work in the first place." Natasha tried to laugh, but instead a sad choking sound came out of her mouth. She kept remembering how the Dr's were not 100% sure that he would wake up at all.

"Anyway, I'll celebrate with you today because I am SUCH a nice person and can't let your Birthday pass. And then I'll celebrate it again when you wake up. I promise. In the meantime here's your gift." Natasha sat down on the edge of Clint's bed making sure not to disturb anything that was hooked up to his body.

"Well, I guess I'll open your gift for you. Lazy bum. I'll have you know I got this forever ago, and I am very annoyed that you can't just open this yourself you idiot…" Natasha placed the gift bag on the bed, and pulled out the tissue paper, and finally the gift. It was a new strap to carry quivers of arrows, she had asked Shield to design it, so it could hold larger quivers. It was also purple, and had tiny silver hawks decorating it. Natasha had been so excited to see his reaction when he saw the gift, and hadn't thought it would be so….. Unresponsive.

"Do you like it Barton? I had some new kid in the labs, Fitz design it for me. He's crazy smart, and he was nice enough to decorate it like this. Once I told him who it was for he actually got the idea to decorate it with the hawks. Do you like it? I'm sure you do. I mean, it's awesome. Isn't it? I think it's pretty cool. It might even be better than the new widow's bite gloves that you got me for Christmas. Those were pretty nice. This is better though." Natasha was babbling, trying to fill up the silence, feeling an ache in her chest missing Clint's endless chatter.

"So, yeah. That's your gift. And I got you a cupcake too. I guess that was kind of dumb, but I couldn't not get you something, you have such a sweet tooth. So, yeah. Happy Birthday." Natasha set the bakery box on the bedside table, and shoved the new strap back into the gift bag. She was upset, and trying not to show it. She missed her partner, and just wanted to get him back.

Natasha carefully scooted up more on the bed, made sure not to dislodge anything, and laid down in the bed with Clint. She rested her head on his chest, and listened to the steady beat of his heart. It made her feel like he was talking to her, even though he wasn't awake.

It made her feel less alone. Made her feel more confident that her partner was going to wake up soon, and would be ok.

Sixth year of their relationship, Natasha's Birthday

They were in Natasha's room, in Avenger Tower. Thy spent a lot of time in there. They liked the rest of the team well enough, but seriously anyone living with Tony Stark needs some personal space sometimes. And Natasha's room had more security than Clint's, so they wound up hanging out in there a lot.

They were wasting away the afternoon making paper airplanes, competing to see who could make the best one. Clint's were usually more accurate, but Natasha's tended to be faster.

"Are you sure you don't want to do anything fun tonight Nat?" Clint asked, smoothing out a fold of paper, making it into a wing. "If we go out to dinner somewhere it's not like the rest of the team will know it's your Birthday. And even if they did find out, what's the worst that could happen? Stark would throw you a party, and that would be the end of it."

Natasha rolled her eyes, and examined the airplane she had just made. "You've never been to one of Stark's parties, they're horrible. I would like to avoid suffering through one of them if that's possible, please. We're going on that mission to Spain next week, I promise that if we have time you can take me to eat somewhere nice there. It'll be fun."

Clint sighed. "Ok….. I'll talk to Coulson and see if we can arrive there a day early, that way we can have a normal date, without any life threatening injuries or hostage situations." Natasha smirked. "Speak for yourself, that date sounds pretty normal to me. Didn't we go out for a romantic hostage situation last week? That was fun."

Clint snorted. "We need to reevaluate what your idea of fun is Nat…. Heads up." As he said this Clint threw his finished paper airplane towards her, and it landed in her lap. Natasha clapped dramatically.

"Good job, right on target! It was flying a bit low though, don't you think? Are you using a heavier kind of paper than I am? Did you do more folds than usual?" Natasha picked up the plane to examine it, "In all though, this was very well made Barton! Did you fold a little cockpit over here?" As Natasha asked this she began examining the fold of the wings, and then noticed something was shining from under one of them.

She carefully unfolded the wing- and found an intricate silver chain, that had an arrow suspended in the middle of it. She caught her breathe as she saw it, and for a second didn't know what to say. She picked it up, and let it catch the light. "Oh Clint, it's beautiful… This is for me, right? You didn't send me the wrong airplane by accident?"

Clint smirked, and began looking at the other planes surrounding him he'd already made. "What? Oh darn, I sent you the one with the necklace, didn't I? I meant to shoot that one over to Stark. Oh well, I guess you can keep it… I mean, if you want to. I know you don't wear a lot of jewelry, I just saw that and thought you might like it… I can always take it back if you totally hate it, just give you some money instead. I don't know, I didn't know if you would even want to wear an arrow, because usually when people see arrows they think of me, and if they see you wearing an arrow they might think that-" Clint's anxious chatter was interrupted when Natasha left her chair and came over to kiss him.

"Thank you Clint. I love it. It's beautiful." She kissed him again, and when she pulled away the archer had a goofy smile on his face. "I'm glad you like it."  
She was grinning, and putting on the jewelry. "I do. Do you think you could grab a pizza for dinner, and bring it up to the roof without anyone noticing? I'll meet you up there with drinks?" Clint pulled her back in for another kiss. ""Sounds like a plan. Meet you up there in half an hour."

_

I hope you liked this, please review! Next chapter will be kind of sad adorable fluff!


	3. Chapter 3

So someone left a very nice review on my story, and was confused about what the 14 Things to do in a Relationship are. It is just a random post I found on Tumblr, that someone had made. All of the things on that list were very cute and random, so I am writing a 14 chapter story, and each chapter talks about Clint and Natasha doing one of the things on that list. So, here is chapter three! Let me be very clear about what rule number three is, so there is no confusion ;D Enjoy! This chapter is set, let's say three or four months after the events of Avengers.

Rule Number Three-

Make them feel special, even on a monday night with a forecast of rain.

_

It was a Monday night, and Clint was sitting on the couch glumly working on what felt like a mountain of paperwork. It had been a long day for the archer, Coulson had been mad at him for being careless on a recent mission, some idiot in the labs had messed up his latest order of arrows, and the coffee machine had been broken. It had been a total disaster. On top of that, Stark had been called into HQ for some new kind of project, and had been as annoying as Clint would have expected. Their meeting had put more of a damper on his day than he would have thought. So now the archer was trying to distract himself with mindless busy work. Clint could have had an intern do half this stuff, but he wanted to distract himself tonight. Maybe if Clint didn't think about how he felt after such a crummy day, he would not fall into one of his dark self hating moods.

Oops, never mind, he was already in one of those.

Barton was checking off a row of boxes on this file, about the last mission the entire team had been on. Marking off who had been hurt, who they brought in, who needed a disciplinary hearing for not following rules when in the field (That was pretty much the whole team) when Natasha entered the room. She was flushed as if she had just been running, and she was holding two grocery bags.

"Hey there. Wow, what did you do to make Fury mad?" She asked, her vibrant eyes sweeping over the stacks of files covering the coffee table in front of her partner. Clint rolled his eyes, and snapped shut the file of papers he had just finished filling out. "I didn't do anything Romanoff. I had some extra time, and wanted to do something productive for once. I didn't feel like just sitting around the apartment all night."

Clint hoped this would end the conversation, but instead Natasha dropped her bags to the floor, and plopped down on the other end of the couch. Her eyes took in everything in front of her. The half empty pot of coffee perched dangerously on top of a pile of papers, the way Clint wouldn't meet her eyes, the downcast look of his face. Something was wrong, but he was trying to convince her he was fine. It wasn't working.

One second Clint was trying to understand the technical words on the paper he was reading, the next Natasha had somehow gotten from the other end of the couch, to practically sitting in his lap. She pulled the paper from his hands, and tossed it behind her, ignoring Hawkeye's protests.

"Naat! Come on, let me do this work! And now I'm going to have to print that one again, you totally crumpled it…. Ugh, can you just let me do this?" Natasha rolled her eyes. "No, I can't. Because you hate doing paperwork, so unless something was wrong and you were trying to keep yourself busy, you would not be doing this right now. You would have forced it off onto Coulson, or paid some poor intern to do it, or tried to slip it in with mine and trick me into doing it. Not that that's ever worked before. What's up?"

Clint was scowling now, and refused to look at his partner as he handled the papers in front of him. Natasha grabbed his chin and made him look at her. "Come on Birdman. Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or am I going to have to interrogate it out of you?" It sounded like she was joking, but part of Clint wasn't quite sure if she was or not. Just to be safe, he may was well tell her.

"I haven't had the best day. I tried to clear my head out on the target range, but that didn't work. So I thought if I kept myself busy with this stuff it might help me think straight. All it's done so far is give me a headache." He grimaced, and stared down at a new page covered in tiny fine print, covering both sides of the paper. "No wonder Coulson always tries to make us do this instead of him. It's awful."

Natasha smiled at this, but was more worried about why Clint had been having a bad day. "So, what happened? Did you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and you're being a big baby, or did something genuinely upsetting happen to you?" Clint rolled his eyes, and reached for another paper but Natasha stopped his hand.

Clint stared at her, and his shoulders drooped a little bit in defeat. If he didn't tell her why he was upset, she'd be bugging him about it all night. The archer rolled his eyes, and started talking.

"Nothing particularly bad happened today….. Just, I've been having a bad couple of weeks. The psych evaluations are still happening, like Fury doesn't trust me enough to know when that damn god is out of my brain. I mean, wouldn't I know if someone was screwing around in my head? Shouldn't I be able to say when I am done with annoying little meetings, and sitting on a couch for two hours, and having some idiot asking me how I feel about things? I don't need therapy anymore. But if I don't go, Fury said he would pull me off all field work. Like he thinks Loki is still controlling me or something." Barton ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up at random angles.

"And the damn shrink won't shut up. She keeps asking me about stuff I don't want to talk about. Why I think I was chosen to be an Avenger, how I grew up, childhood memories, what I feel I do for Shield, why Fury took me in. I thought therapy was supposed to make you feel better about yourself. But this just makes me feel like I'm worthless. Like, I'm broken somehow, and it was a mistake that Shield ever hired me." Clint wasn't looking at his partner, but could feel her eyes on him.

"I mean, really, who am I even? Just some guy who knows how to shoot a bow. I'm not s super soldier, I don't have a metal suit that can fly. I'm not like Banner, or Thor, or you." Natasha opened her mouth to object at this last statement, but Clint shot her a look and spoke before she could. "Come on Nat. You were trained for years, and I don't need to know what the Room did to you, but we both knew they did things to help you learn the skills that you have. I hate them, but you can't say they had nothing to do with what you can do today. You are amazing, and I'm just an idiot with a bow. People should stop calling me an Avenger- Not that very many people do that anyway. Those that did actually notice me in the New York footage mostly make snarky comments on the internet about how stupid it is that I use a bow instead of a gun."

Clint's shoulders were drooping, and he looked pathetically sad. It wasn't often that he fell into these dark, self hating, complaining moods. But when he did it could be difficult to bring back the happy normal Clint that Natasha knew and loved. Well, she knew that one thing that wouldn't help was letting him mope in his own self pity.

"Ugh, just shut up Barton. Who cares what idiots on the internet think? Do they know anything about weapons, or how much damage an arrow can do? You just don't like going to therapy. No one sane does. Quit moping about it. And if you aren't an Avenger then why is your name in the top secret file that I stole called "Avengers initiative?" Is that just a typo? Maybe I misread it?" Natasha scoffed at this last part, and Clint almost smiled at her. Well, that was a start.

Natasha settled herself down next to him, pushing papers off the couch, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close to him without even thinking about it. She smiled at his touch, and leaned into him. "I'm sorry you've had some bad weeks Barton. I'll talk to Coulson, and see if I can convince him to stop your therapy. Or at least give you a bit of a break for a week or two. That should help. But you know what else would help? If you'd stop caring about what other people think about you. Caring about if idiots think you're qualified to be an Avenger or not. Because you ARE one, and that's not going to change. You have to stop comparing yourself to a Super Soldier, or Gamme Ray infected Monster. Or a freaking Demigod." She glanced up at him, a smirk playing on the edge of her lips. "You need to stop comparing yourself to me too. Because let's face it, between the two of us you know I am always going to be the better one of this partnership." She was joking, and was relieved to hear Clint laugh at her words.

"And it's not about comparing yourself to the rest of the team, and thinking you're not good enough just because you have such a unique skill set. You're amazing Barton, just because you don't have a tacky uniform or magic weapon doesn't mean you aren't a superhero in your own right. You can hit a target from impossible distances. You can fight me, and come out alive. Not many people are able to do that, you and I both know I could kill Stark in less than a minute." Barton laughed at this too, Natasha could practically feel his dark mood falling away. She kept talking, trying to pull him out of the darkness that had sucked him in. The same darkness that pulled her in more than she liked to admit. The darkness Clint had pulled her from more times than she could count.

"I mean, look at your resume. You can throw knives, have amazing hand eye coordination, you design half your own crazy arrows, you tricked the Trickster God himself into catching an exploding arrow. That's pretty cool. You are an Avenger, no matter what idiots might think." She looked at him, and he was smiling now. She could have stopped talking, but she wasn't done.

"And you are more than just an Avenger, Barton. You're special. At least you are to me. You helped turn me back into something close to a normal human being. You have saved thousands of lives. You make me laugh, and don't hold back when you're fighting with me. You don't think you need to let me win. You always make me tea for breakfast, even though I know you prefer coffee. And you know how to cheer me up, when I don't feel like smiling ever again."

Natasha buried her face into his shoulder, his arm tightened around her. They didn't say anything, just enjoyed the moment. Finally she pulled away a bit. "Do you feel better now?" Clint smiled at her, there was some emotion in his eyes she didn't feel like analyzing right now. "Yeah, actually, I do. Thanks. I owe you a stupid self pity meltdown session- Just let me know when you want to cash that in," he joked. Natasha smirked, and pulled herself out of his grasp to unpack the groceries. Outside it had started to rain, the steady beat of water pounding against the windows echoed through the apartment.

"Do you want to help me unpack these, or are you actually going to try and do all of that paperwork?" Natasha asked, already knowing what his answer would be. Sure enough Clint chuckled, and began cramming folders and files into a briefcase Coulson had given him. "Of course not. I'll just find some poor newbie intern tomorrow morning, and tell them if they don't fill all of this out for me I'll send you after them."

_

I don't know if this was good or not, I am not used to writing this kind of fluff…. Please let me know what you think! Next chapter is going to be some fluff and will also be SO funny! Please review guys, feed the author!

Want more of my writing? Do you love Hunger Games and Avengers? Check out the collaboration I am a part of. Just search for the story In the End, You Always Kneel by The Freelancer Collaboration- I wrote chapter two, Natasha! It is shaping up to be a super good story, with some really talented writers. Check it out, and leave me a review over there! You won't regret it!


	4. Chapter 4

Ok, this is a bit of a tricky chapter… The fourth "rule" is "Befriend their mom, she will tell you stories no one else can." Well….. That's a bit of a problem since the mom's of our two favorite Avengers are dead. So, I had to change what this rule could mean. I decided Coulson could be a little something like a mom figure to Clint. And came up with this! I hope you enjoy! I feel bad I am kind of doing two Clint chapters in a row, if you want I will make the next chapter very much Natasha based :) This chapter is, let's say around four months after Clint and Natasha started to work together.

Rule number four-Befriend their Mom, she will tell you stories that no one else can. (EDIT or befriend their handler ;D)

Clint had to do a double take when he saw who was sitting in the office. It was Phil and Natasha- No one else, just the two of them. That might not have been so extremely insane, only they were not going over mission papers or extraction plans. They were not fighting or resisting the urge to kill one another. They were laughing. Together, not at each other. And as soon as Barton entered the room, they tried to stop and go back to acting like they hated each other. But then Coulson started laughing again, and even after composing herself, Natasha looked like she was about to break back into a smile.

"Hey guys…. What's going on?" Clint asked, wondering if he'd somehow gone insane, or these two were playing a joke on him. Only the Black Widow didn't do stuff like that, did she?" Coulson looked more serious, and Natasha's almost smile grew. She was the one who spoke. "Nothing much. I was just getting to know my handler better… And my partner. Turns out Coulson has quite a bit of information about you that I found pretty interesting."

Suddenly Clint felt very nervous about what these two might have been laughing about. Especially since Phil was looking more and more uncomfortable leaning back in his chair away from the archer. Like he was regretting something he had said, or more like he'd said more than he meant to. The handler cleared his throat. "Um, well Barton, Agent Romanoff was asking me about your work history. I was just telling her a few stories….."

Now Natasha was smirking at the archer, and all he could think about was every dumb embarrassing thing he had done that Coulson could have told her about. Wasn't that stuff supposed to be confidential?

Natasha turned in her seat towards him, and her eyes were practically shining with mischief- Clint had only seen that look a couple of times before. Like right before she got to use a bazooka gun to bow up a car. Or when they were given a mission to blow up an empty. It was the look she got right before she caused some serious trouble.

"So Barton, is it true you called in to be rescued from a mission once because you were lost?" She asked. Clint looked at her in disbelief. "Um, yeah, is that such a big deal? Stuff happens. People get lost." Natasha's smirk grew wider. "Is it true once you called in to be rescued because you were lost in Mall of America?"

Clint opened his mouth to reply with a witty remark, but came up with nothing. So instead he just kind of left his mouth hanging open, feeling like an idiot. "Um…. That might have happened on one of my first missions. At least it happened in one of the first years I worked a mission. It's a big place, ok? It was crazy crowded, and no one would tell me where the maps were. I studied the employee blueprints, ok? I didn't know how to get from the stupid toy store to Forever 21!' The place is huge, it's not so crazy I could get lost there!"

Natasha's lips twitched, and Coulson was busy staring at the ceiling, probably wondering if it had been a good idea to spill a few of Hawkeye's secrets. It hadn't been. He was going to come back to find every surface in his office had been covered with suction cup arrows later.

Clint was about to defend needing rescue from a mall, when Natasha spoke again. "Oh, and Coulson also mentioned that you once confused a sleeper arrow and a poison arrow? No way you are THAT stupid."

Barton had to smile at that one. "Ok, first of all no one died because of that. I came out the worst from that one. Second of all, come on! All my arrows look the same, it's no surprise I should confuse them sometimes! It wasn't even a big deal. I just shot the target full of a sleeping aid, threw them in the back of the car, and found out they were still awake when they woke up and tried to choke me." Clint laughed at this, and rubbed his neck as if he could still feel those fingers trying to crush his windpipe. "So I just braked the car point blank, and luckily I hadn't thought to put the set belt on the target, so they kind of went flying. Hit their head against the back of my seat, and did me a favor by knocking themselves out."

Coulson was laughing at this, he kind of liked that story. And Natasha was doing that throaty chuckle that Clint secretly thought he might love. That laugh made him want to spill all of his idiotic secrets, just so she wouldn't stop laughing.

Ugh, quit it, he had to pull himself together. They had only been working together a few months, Clint sometimes felt unnerved by how much he liked his new partner. Even if it seemed she didn't like him back. Even if he had practically been ordered to not like or get attached to her. Whatever, Fury wasn't his boss, he couldn't tell him what to do….. Wait, that was stupid… And not really true, Fury was very much his boss. Not the boss of his friendships though, right?

Clint's train of thought was interrupted by Phil speaking. Their handler leaned in towards the assassins, he was still laughing. "Oh, I should tell you about the time Fury got mad about Clint and his pets." At this Natasha leaned in closer, eager to hear more, and Clint raised his hand as if to stop his handler. "Woah, ok, I think we've told her enough for now Phil, she doesn't want to hear about that….."

Natasha tossed her hair over her shoulder and grinned at him with a feline-like smile. "Oh, I would love to hear about this Barton. Sounds interesting, and I don't have anywhere to be."

Before the archer could protest, Coulson started talking. "Ok, so Clint used to have a thing for stray animals. If it was loose, abandoned, on the streets, he would bring it in. At first it was just a few dogs, a couple cats, that was ok. We were usually able to find homes for them pretty quickly- Or in a couple cases return the animals to their real owners when Barton here was a bit too eager to play the hero of the animals…"

Clint rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. "How was I supposed to know those dogs were breed to look that skinny on purpose? They looked malnourished to me!" "Coulson scoffed. "Those were Ibizan Hounds you idiot! We had to pay their snotty, wealthy owners thousands of dollars so they wouldn't press charges over you kidnapping their prize winning dogs!"

Natasha was laughing again, "Is that the story? Clint stole some snobby dogs, and that's why he is so poor? Because is still paying off the bribe?" Phil grinned. "No, that's just the start. So over the years he started bringing in more and more strays. And not just cats and dogs either. He started to bring in things like rabbits or foxes he found in hunting traps, birds with broken wings, anything that looked like it might need help. It was getting ridiculous, and Fury didn't have time to find homes for all of them. This isn't exactly an animal shelter."

The Black Widow smirked at Barton, who looked a bit uncomfortable. This was not his favorite story. Their handler continued talking. "So, one day Clint brought in a cat with a batch of kittens. And Fury lost it, he was just done with the whole savior of the animals thing. So he sent out an order to have all agents on missions that week keep an eye out- for rats."

Natasha's eyebrows lifted up, arching across her forehead. "Rats?" Coulson was grinning. "Yup. Well, or mice. For a week we had a couple hundred agents going on missions, and we had them on the lookout for trapped mice. We payed them five bucks for whatever they brought in. We wound up collecting way more than we needed, just sent them the extras off to the lab."

Natasha nodded, Clint fidgeted, wondering if there was anyway he could stop this story. "Ok, so what did you actually need the mice for in the first place?" She asked.

Phil was trying not to laugh, he was maybe a bit too amused by this story. "Well we had them tested for anything that could kill our archer friend here, and found around 70 that weren't infected with any disgusting diseases. And Fury had all 70 put in Barton's room."

Natasha's eyes widened a bit, she was smiling again. "No way." Phil nodded eagerly, "Yeah! It was amazing. Clint had just gotten back from a mission, he was exhausted. I was in the hallway waiting to see his reaction. He walked into his room, and I swear not a minute later he BOLTED out, totally freaking out. He was terrified." Remembering the memory Phil lost control, and broke out laughing for what felt like a very long time for Clint. He would have been annoyed, only Natasha was laughing too, and listening to her laugh, seeing her happy, Barton found himself smiling instead of getting annoyed and mad like he usually did when this story was told. She turned towards her partner, "You're scared of mice?" She asked, laughing. Clint sighed heavily. "No, I am not scared of mice. It was dark, and I just wasn't expecting for the floor to start moving and crawling over my feet."

It was an embarrassing story, but Clint could find the humor in it. At least until Coulson began demonstrating just how scared Clint had been, mimicking the way he had stumbled out of his room, and freaked out. Not even Natasha's laughter could make that seem funny.

Eventually the trio calmed down, and since Coulson had a lot of files to go through he sent Clint and Natasha down to the cafeteria to get dinner. Natasha was still smiling, and as they walked down the hall she glanced at Clint. "So, did that work? Did the mice stunt scare you away from rescuing all the strays?" Clint smirked and shook his head. "Nah, I'm just smart enough to bring them to animal shelters instead of back here. Fury really broke my habit of bringing strays back to base."

Natasha lifted an eyebrow. "Oh really? When's the last time you brought one back?" Clint smiled at her, and spoke without thinking. "I don't know, how long have you been here now?" For a second he was scared he had said the wrong thing. Maybe offended her, and now the Black Widow was going to kill him for calling her a stray. Instead after a few seconds she glanced at him, and her smile was softer than the one she wore when laughing at him with Coulson. "Well, glad you weren't too scared of the thought of Fury turning your room into another mouse hole to bring me in." And that was it.

They didn't talk much during their meal, but things felt different between them. The mood was lighter between them, they were more at ease with each other.

And a few weeks later, when Clint came back from a solo mission, he would find something on his nightstand. One of those catnip mice, like the kind cats play with. He didn't need to ask if Natasha had left it there for him. He knew that she had. Maybe this partnership could become a kind of friendship after all.

_

Ok, this chapter was a little bit of a mess but I hope that you liked it! PLEASE review! And a friendly reminder that you should check out the collaboration I am working with, just search for the story "In the End You Will Always Kneel" by The Freelancer Collaboration. It is a really great story, and I am writing Natasha in it! But really please review this story you guys! Next chapter is more about both members of Strike Team Delta, that will be fun since the last two chapters have focused on Clint more than Nat :D Enjoy and review guys!


	5. Chapter 5

Ok, sorry for taking so long to update this story, I hope you like this chapter :D

Rule number five- Order each other food at restaurants, just to try something new.

They were on an undercover mission in Las Vegas, gathering intel on a new group that Shield suspected was smuggling a new dangerous kind of drug into the country through tourists traveling through the city. The last couple of days had been absolutely miserable, Strike Team Delta was used to going undercover, but it was never fun playing obnoxious tourists. Ok, at first maybe it was a little bit of fun, but before long with the grumpy oversized crowds pressing on them from all sides, drunk bachelorete parties shrieking in their ears, and the sun beating down relentlessly, this mission became anything but fun.

But they had finally gathered all of the information Fury wanted, and they would be leaving tomorrow morning, before a new team of agents came in to wrap up the job. It wasn't like the job was too hard for Strike Team Delta, just the opposite- Now that they knew how complex completing the job would be, Coulson was going to send in a group of newbie agents to finish this one up, as part of their training. Honestly this entire thing had been a waste of Clint and Nat's time, but there hadn't been many world threatening disasters lately for them to check up on, so they'd been sent here for recon. It was better than filing paperwork at least. And now it had given them a free night in Vegas, so that was a plus.

Clint had suggested that they try their hand at some gambling, but Natasha insisted that wouldn't be any fun since the slot machines were just dumb luck and she would be able to rig most any of the other games so they'd win every time. So they decided to just go out for a fancy dinner somewhere instead.

Clint had hopefully suggested they check out a buffet, but Natasha had just rolled her eyes. "Really Barton? Have you seen the crowd of tourists we've been dealing with for the last two days? Now imagine that crowd, only they're all tired from a long day of sight seeing, and fighting to get the best food off the buffet. Does that sound like your idea of fun?" The archer pretended to consider this for a minute. "I don't know….. I mean when you say they fight each other for the best food, is this like a Hunger Games thing? Like, would I be able to bring my bow, and teach a few of them a lesson? Maybe find that dude who spilled a beer on me earlier, and shoot a cupcake out of his hands?"

Natasha laughed at this, as she slipped a gun into a hidden pocket of her purse. "Yeah, no. Totally not what I meant Katniss. If you want to go do that and get arrested, be my guest- Just don't expect me to bail you out. Or, you could come have dinner with me, at a fairly nice restaurant I've made reservations at."

Barton pretended to be disappointed, and sighed dramatically. "Fine, I suppose I'll give you the honor of my company instead of tormenting tourists, and being arrested for shooting the idiots with arrows." Natasha grinned, and grabbing his hand pulled her partner out of the hotel room.

The restaurant she had made reservations at was in their hotel, so luckily they didn't have to battle many tourists on their way there- Although the two of them did roll their eyes at a group of them that was snapping photos of the lobby as if they were viewing one of the wonders of the world, rather than an overdecorated hotel lobby that reeked of cigarette smoke.

Natasha had chosen well- The restaurant they went too was probably far too overpriced for the quality of food that was served, but that meant few tourists wanted to eat here. And honestly the food was stupidly expensive, but it was also more than edible. The two of them were escorted to a table near a window, and after a basket of lukewarm breadsticks was plunked down between them, the assassins were left alone.

Clint leaned back in his seat, and grinned, savoring the moment. It wasn't often that he and Natasha did anything that normal people would consider a date. Sure, doing stuff like chasing thieves on mopeds through the streets of Paris was fun, but wasn't something most people would consider enough they had done that more than a few times….. This was nice though too though. Much more normal than what they were used to. It was nice spending time together in a fancy place and getting to just be themselves, not aliases they had created to execute a mission.

Natasha seemed to be enjoying this too, because she only spent a couple of minutes scanning the restaurant, searching for signs of danger before she relaxed and turned her gaze to her partner. "Well? Isn't this nicer than a buffet?" Clint shrugged, and studied the menu. "It certainly is more expensive…. I like that. This has been one of the most annoying missions ever, let's order lobster for all the rooms in the hotel, just to get back at Fury." Nat lifted an eyebrow at him. "Did you forget that Coulson said if we weren't more careful with the Shield credit cards he'd take them away from us? Do you really want to give that up?"

Clint thought about this for a second. "Um, yes? It would be worth it if it made Fury "furious". Heh, get it? Furious Fury?Yeah, that would be funny. We don't even need the cards, we both know that you're loaded with money!" Natasha rolled her eyes playfully. "I can't argue with that, but what makes you think I would share any of it with you Barton? I should let you mess with the cards, and see how long you survive with them taken away."

Clint opened his mouth, enjoying this stupid flirty playful banter, when a waiter appeared at their table. "Good evening. May I start you two off with a drink? Or are you ready to order?" Hawkeye was in a playful mood, so he spoke before Natasha did. "I think we'll start off with drinks. The little lady will have- Let's see, where was that, ah! Found it here. Is the "Vegas Zippity Zinger" really so full of fun it will make your mouth explode? It is, really? Well then, my lovely date will have that thank you."

Natasha's eyes were narrowed as she watched Clint order her a drink she normally would not touch with a ten foot pole. Well, if that was the game he wanted to play…. She spoke up. "Oh, sweetie you always know just what to order for me!" She giggled flirtatiously, and Clint just smirked at her. The Black Widow glanced at the drink menu, then smiled sweetly at the waiter who was unamused by the whole "Vegas Couple So In Love They Finished Each Others Food Orders" act that was going on. Whatever, like she cared. "Ok, well since my sweetie pie ordered me such a yummy drink, I think he should have a bottle of your best vodka!"

The waiter did a double take when he wrote that down. "Excuse me? Do you mean a shot of our best vodka? A whole bottle, that's quite a bit of liquor." Tasha smiled even more as she spoke. "Oh, not for him! You just watch, that bottle will be gone before you know it."

Seriously annoyed, wishing he had gotten a less freaky table, the waiter left them to pursue the dinner menu. Clint started complaining as soon as he walked out of earshot. "Ok, that was cruel. You know that I hate that swill, I'm not going to drink that! Why would you order an entire bottle?" Natasha scoffed. "I don't know, why would you order me the kind of drink that a sorority girl would order when she comes here for her 21rst Birthday?!" Clint made a pouty face, "It comes with a lollipop! I thought you'd like it!"

Natasha had to smile at that. "Ugh, Barton, you are an idiot. You already ruined my drink, are you ruining my dinner too? Are you going to order me chicken nuggets or something before I have a chance to order something I would actually want?" Clint grinned, "I don't know, are you going to order me octopus pie, or something else fancy and gross?" Natasha snorted. "oh, come on. At least I would pick out something new and different for you to try. If you picked my dinner, I'd probably hate it." He lifted an eyebrow at her. "Is that a challenge?" She lifted her menu to hide her face. "I don't know, is it Barton?"

The waiter came back with one large bottle of vodka, a couple shot glasses, and one pink fruity drink, filled with maraschino cherries, and topped with whipped cream, and as Clint has pointed out, a lollipop. The two mercenaries were intently studying their menus as they accepted their drinks, and when they waiter asked, said they were ready to order.

This time Natasha went first. She laid the menu out on the table, and spoke so quickly the waiter hardly had time to write the order. "I would like the pan seared tuna steak please, as rare as you're allowed to cook it, served on a bed of couscous with mixed vegetables."

Clint pulled a face, and looked genuinely disappointed to hear what his dinner would be. "Ugh. Ok, I'll have the Taco Salad, and a side of sweet potato fries. Thanks man."

The waiter gathered the menus, and walked away without another word. As soon as he left the two assassins started complaining. "Tuna steak? Vegetables? What the heck is couscous, did you even TRY and find something on that massive menu that I would want to eat?" "Taco. Salad? Those are two words that should not be together on a menu, why the heck would you order something that gross Barton?"

"Oh, come on Romanoff, I got you sweet potato fries. Have you ever had sweet potato fries? They are the most amazing thing you could ever hope to eat! And I promise they will taste much better than that couscous junk you ordered for me!"

As he spoke, Natasha picked up her drink and took a tentative sip. She almost spit it out as soon as she tried it. "Oh, gosh, this is disgusting. It tastes like someone poured the juice out of a jar of maraschino cherries, added a bag of sugar, and the cheapest alcohol they could find. I am not drinking this Clint." Hawkeye was smirking. "Oh, come on, it can't be that bad!" He grabbed the drink from Natasha, and took a gulp. He struggled for a few seconds to keep the drink down, and then tried to smile through his disgust. "Mmmm…. Yummy… I sure know how to pick a good drink." He tried to take another sip and almost choked as the sickeningly sweet flavor overwhelmed him. Natasha just rolled her eyes, and poured herself a shot of vodka.

"Barton, if my dinner is as disgusting as that drink, I swear I am going to make Coulson put you on paperwork duty for a couple of weeks. I'm not kidding, he owes me a favor."

Luckily the food they had picked was amazing, although neither of them would out right admit it. They spent most of the meal commenting on how much better the other persons dinner looked, trying to steal bites of the other persons plate, and basically making a scene. The other diners kept shooting them annoyed looks as the level of vodka in the bottle gradually went down, and the noise level of the assassins went up. Usually they were more discreet than this…. But hey, it was their last night here and they didn't have to kill anyone. This was the closest thing to a vacation Strike Team Delta could get.

Tomorrow they would be battling hangovers (Clint more so than Natasha), and Coulson would force them to do paperwork, and more missions would be assigned, and Natasha would act like their night out never happened.

But then, they would go grab some lunch in the cafeteria. And Natasha would smirk at her partner, glance at the array of food Shield had to offer, and challenge Clint to redeem himself by picking her a meal she would actually eat this time.

Within a few months, they practically only ever ate food that the other picked for them.

_

Ok, this chapter sucks. But hey, at least I updated! Next chapter coming soon :D


	6. Chapter 6

Rule Number 6- Leave notes when you go out for the day, it will make you feel safe.

I had so much fun writing this one, I really hope you guys like it! It gets very fluffy, so enjoy ;D

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Clint woke up early- Well, early for him. Ok, so he woke up before noon for once. That was pretty good for him, especially considering his insane schedule. Late night undercover jobs were fun at times, but didn't exactly bode well for early mornings.

He pulled on a tattered pair of purple pajama bottoms, and ran a hand through his messy bedhead of hair before heading to the Shield cafeteria. Sure he might terrify a few of the newbies with his just woke up from the dead look, but if Shield didn't want him scaring off new recruits in the morning they should let him keep a damn coffee machine in his own room. Stupid rules. Always making life harder.

He shuffled to the cafeteria, grunted at a few people he vaguely recognized, and soon was back in front of his room holding an entire pot of coffee and a donut. Maybe he should have grabbed a cup for the coffee, but who had time for that? The pot would work just fine.

He took a slurp of the drink, and was about to open his door to get ready for the day, when something caught his eyes. A tiny white square of paper was folded up, and taped to the corner of his door. More curious than cautious, Clint yanked it off to investigate. An elegant arrow was doodled in the upper left corner of the square, and a Black Widow hourglass was casually drawn in the lower right corner, sketched out with a few swift lines. Barton stared at it, wondering what the heck this could be about.

It had been around four months since he brought The Widow in, and they were just starting to work well together. Ok. Maybe that was an overstatement. They were just starting to not totally distrust each other, they didn't argue every single time they spoke, and they were allowed to go on missions without three highly skilled special op teams following them in case Natasha decided to make a break for it. So, yeah, they were making progress.

Clint opened the door to his room and made sure to set the donut down carefully on his dresser before sitting down on his bed to read the note, and take another gulp of coffee. It was extremely straightforward.

Barton,

Coulson called me in this morning, a special job came up they need me to work it solo. It's confidential, but thought you should know it's in Hong-Kong, should last three days, and if you don't hear back from me by then I expect you to come help me get out of whatever mess Shield has thrown me into. Not that I think I would need your help, but you never know. Better safe than sorry.  
Romanoff

Clint read the note, read it again, read it a third time. He couldn't help but wonder why The Black Widow would leave a note like this, it wasn't really like her…

He was sipping at the remaining dredges of coffee grounds at the bottom of the pot and licking donut crumbs off his fingers when a thought struck him. This was her first solo mission with Shield. Maybe she was worried she wasn't going to return, that Shield had had enough, and was ready to get rid of her. Of course they wouldn't do that, but how would she know? Her past was seriously messed up, Clint wouldn't be surprised if Natasha thought Shield would just kill her if they decided she was too much trouble. This note was her way of letting someone else know where she was, that she was supposed to come back. Maybe it made her feel safer. Well then, if it helped, Clint would gladly start exchanging notes with his partner.

One year later

Annoyed, Natasha whipped her backpack into the corner of the room, and placed the duffle bag of weapons more carefully at her feet. This mission was already bad enough without a random grenade going off. Clint was right behind her, surveying the room and trying to make the best of it.

"Hey, at least there's a window in this one, isn't that nice? And look, no roaches yet! I mean yeah we should probably still use the bug netting, so I don't wake up with another spider on my face, but hey no obvious roaches is ALWAYS a good thing in my book. Plus at least this house has two beds, so one of us won't have to sleep on the floor." He walked back into the other room as Natasha began surveying the bedroom, ensuring it was secure enough for her standards. Clint was in the sorry excuse for a kitchen. It consisted of a broken microwave, and empty cooler. "Aw man, another place without a coffee machine? It's like Shield is trying to kill me."

Natasha spoke from the bedroom. "Come on, you could do with a break from all the caffeine Barton, it's really not good for you." He snorted. "You know what else isn't good for me? Being so tired that I can't focus on not getting killed. That's REALLY not good for me." Natasha smiled to herself at his words, and although she was annoyed that Shield had just shuffled them to their seventh safe house this mission- Well, no, there was no "although" she was just straight up annoyed.

They had been sent here to gather intel on a group suspected of "collecting" and selling organs on the black market. The entire job was hellish. It was almost impossible for them to really blend in here, Clint hardly knew a word of the language (lazy bum, couldn't be bothered to learn how to ask for directions but knew how to ask if he could pet someone's dog….) and it was sweltering hot here in the middle of summer.

Natasha peeled off her catsuit (literally, it was like a second skin in this heat) and took a quick shower in the filthy bathroom. The water stream was pitiful, and the coldest the water got was "not boiling hot". It was still nice to wash away the dust and grime of travel, and clean the wounds she had collected on this job. When she was done she changed into a tank top and shorts. She did all of this in less than ten minutes- But when she went back out into the kitchen, Barton was gone.

For just a second Natasha was worried, on alert, assuming the worst had happened. She soon had a gun in hand. It was that kind of mission, the kind you never really feel safe on unless you have a weapon within reach 24/7. She was looking for signs of a struggle, maybe blood, worst case scenario signs Barton had ditched her for who knows what reason. But no, his bag was still in the room- And- There, on the door, was a folded white square of paper. Natasha cautiously walked over and pulled it off, and relaxed when she saw it had their usual symbols on it. A perfectly drawn Black Widow Hourglass in the upper left hand corner since the note was to her, and a squiggly arrow in the bottom right corner since it was from him.

She brought the note back into the bedroom, and laid down before opening it. It was nice to not be on her feet, but being on her back hurt the new bullet wound in her stomach….. Oh well, she would just have to suck it up, she'd live. She'd been through worse. Natasha opened the note to distract herself. It was written in his messy scrawl that almost no one else knew how to decipher.

Natasha,

Hey, so this safe house has a shower that WORKS! See, LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE, THINGS ARE LOOKING UP! I would have told you I was heading out, but you need even a few minutes of relaxing, didn't want to bug you. Also didn't want to have my wrist broken by walking in on you in the shower. Not again. Try and relax, TAKE THE PAINKILLERS COULSON SENT, that bullet wound is worse than you seem to think. Get some rest, I'll bring back food and hopefully some kind of caffeine. I am going to the store we passed on our way here, the one that was a couple blocks away next to the stand selling kites? If I'm not back in around two hours assume that I have either found a local girl who has fallen madly in love with me, or that I have been abducted and am in deep trouble. If it's the latter, well, I'm sure you can come and save me.

Clint (duh who else would write you a message like this? We're the only two in here…)

Natasha allowed herself a rare smile at the note, and then went to dig out the painkillers Coulson had sent her way from her backpack. She was going to follow her partners advice- But only because he wasn't around to see she was actually listening to him, and rub it in her face. Honestly when she actually did what he said, Clint could be insufferable…

Roughly one month after the events of Avengers-

Natasha was sitting in the kitchen of her apartment- THEIR apartment, staring numbly down at the note in her hand. The world had gone insane a lithe over a month ago. With Super Soldiers back from the dead, Demigods calling lightning down from the sky, aliens invading the city, having to work with Tony Stark, and an idiot who wore gold antler horns and a green cape messing up everything in Clint's head.

But she had gotten Barton back. He was here, and alive, and she was going to fix him. Sure, he had bad nightmares, and sometimes didn't know who she was when he woke up in the middle of the night besides her. His brain was obviously a bit scrambled, and Fury had said he doubted Clint would be allowed back in the field anytime soon. But he was here. Alive. That was all Natasha cared about.

She was supposed to take care of him- And he wasn't supposed to leave in the middle of the night with nothing more than note. This was not how they worked, this was Loki screwing her life up again, even weeks after he had been taken back to Asgard.

Natasha had woken up early, and reached out for Clint besides her- Only to find a cold crumpled pile of blankets. That had caused the first stirrings of alarm. There had been no coffee brewing in the kitchen, that was another sign something was very wrong. She had reached for the knife under her pillow, the smooth handle a comforting weight in her hand.

Carefully she had made her way through the apartment- Not sure what she was looking for, not sure what to expect. Then she realized some of Clint's things were gone. Some arrows. A scarce handful of clothes, his toothbrush. As soon as she realized his bow was gone, she had gone to the door, where they always left their notes if one went out without the other. Sure enough there was a clumsily folded piece of paper. A Widows Hourglass in the upper left corner to her, an arrow in the lower right corner so she knew it was from him.

The note was scrawled in pencil, crumpled up as if it had been riding in his pocket for a while.

Nat,

I need space. I know you're just trying to help, but in this city, with these memories, I feel like my brain is going to implode. I'm going to the farm- I don't know for how long. I guess until I get my head on right again. I know your probably not going to listen to me, but please don't follow me….. It's not fair that I should stall your life just because Shield thinks I'm too crazy to work for them now. I'll keep you updated. I'm not supposed to say this, it's like breaking one of our rules, but whatever. I love you.  
Clint

After a couple minutes of staring at the note, Natasha snorted and walked back into their room. Damn right she wasn't going to listen to him… If she caught the next plane out she might even make it to the farm before he did, depending on when he left. She was going to go help him, no matter how long it took. At least she would finally use up some of those personal days she'd saved up over the years with Shield….

Four years after Avengers

Clint was half asleep when he rolled over in bed and realized Natasha wasn't there, that the only things next to him were blankets pillows and a couple of weapons. Ok, that was weird.

Then he realized he had actually been sleeping, and hadn't been woken up by a crying baby. THAT was weirder. Clint was instantly awake, popping his hearing aids in, taking in the room. The first place that he looked was in the pink bassinet resting beneath one of the windows in the room, it was empty. Starting to panic, Clint then looked at the bedroom door- And was flooded with relief when he saw a small white piece of paper stuck to the corner of it.

It was a brief note, the handwriting was loopy, Clint guessed Natasha had been fighting sleep when she wrote it.

Clint,  
Nova's having trouble sleeping again. I swear this is your fault, if your DNA wasn't composed of 99% all the caffeine you have ingested over the years, our daughter would be able to sleep on a normal schedule. I didn't want her to wake you up, so we're outside. If you actually wake up and read this, you know where to find us.  
Tash

Clint felt relief flood his body- The farm was ridiculously well protected, if someone so much as stepped on the property without their permission, Strike Team Delta would know. That didn't stop them from being terrified for their daughters safety though. Constantly being worried that this beautiful little person, this happiness might be taken away from them.

It was a pleasantly warm summer night, Clint stepped out onto the porch downstairs in his pajamas. Actually, wait, 2;am, it was a pleasantly warm summer morning technically. Natasha was sitting on the porch swing, cradling their three month old daughter, who looked like she had just fallen asleep based on the exhausted look in Natasha's eyes.

She smiled tiredly up at Clint when he walked up, and spoke softly. "Hey, I see you decided to join us." Clint's heart skipped a beat as he grinned at the two redheads in front of him. "Well, you know, I didn't want to miss out on all the fun. You should have woken me up, I would have taken care of her." Natasha shrugged, scooting to the side of the swing so Clint could sit down next to her.

"Well it wasn't your turn, and besides you need sleep, it's your turn to feed her when she wakes up in- Oh, probably three hours." Clint sat down and joined his family on the swing. "That's fine, who needs sleep? That's why coffee was invented." Natasha smiled, Clint wrapped his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Barton reached out and carefully repositioned the blanket around the infant, thinking that if it meant he could have more moments, he would choose never to sleep again.

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DID YOU LIKE IT? PLEASE TELL ME THAT YOU LIKED IT! I LOVED WRITING THIS, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! PLEASE REVIEW! (Also I doubt any more chapters will go far enough ahead to when Nat and Clint have kids, this will probably be the only mention of little Nova in this story hahaha, I just thought it would be a cute idea.)


	7. Chapter 7

Yay new chapter! Friendly reminder I did not come up with these rules, all of these are directly from a tumblr post, I don't change them at all :) (Just, the wording on this rule felt weird, so wanted to clarify that lol) Ok, when is this chapter set….. Before Avengers, I think right around before the time their friendship becomes something more ;D

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Rule number 7- Care for each other when sick, soup is the easiest thing to make.

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Natasha Romanoff did NOT get sick, she just didn't. It was practically impossible thanks to the Red Room. It was also supposed to be impossible because Natasha straight up did not have time to be sick. Her schedule wouldn't allow it. This had to be a fluke, an accident, maybe she was just randomly feeling really crummy. Yeah, and her throat felt like it was full of broken glass because- Maybe she just needed a drink of water. And this room in Shield HQ was just stuffy, that's why it felt like she had a fever. She probably didn't. She was fine. This was fine.

Natasha was telling herself this, then she stood up to go report to Coulson for the days job, and found the room spinning around her sickeningly. She had to sit down on the nearest chair, before she ended up on the floor.

Crap. Someone at The Room had not done their job, because either someone had found a poison she was not immune to, or else she was sick.

The Black Widow hated showing weakness, admit she was not invincible, but she was smart enough to know there was NO way she was going into the field like this. Maybe back in The Room they would have forced her to work through it- But things were different here at Shield. They wouldn't send her out like this. Mostly because she would probably mess up the mission and possibly get herself killed, but also because unlike her previous employers, the people of Shield were not so heartless as to put their agents before a job.

Well, ok, at least not as often as The Red Room did.

Bottom line, no way was Coulson going to let her work in this condition. So, annoyed at herself for having to admit defeat, at her body for betraying her like this, Natasha had picked up the phone and called her partner. He sounded far to chirpy for someone who was awake this early, he must have already ingested a few pots of coffee. "Nat, what's up? You almost here? Come on, we only have two hours to listen to Fury lecture us on how to behave on an undercover mission before we need to be on the plane!" Natasha wanted to roll her eyes at this, but a headache was forming, so she closed them instead.

"Clint, I need you to tell Coulson, I can't work this one. I- I'm sick." There was a disbelieving silence on the other end of the line, Natasha swallowed past the pain in her throat before she spoke. "Clint? You there?" He sounded like he didn't quite believe her. "You? YOU"RE sick? Is that even possible?" She did roll her eyes now, it was worth the added pain in her head. "YES! I'm sick, you idiot. Doesn't Shield give sick days? Or am I expected to stumble through this mission, and blow our cover in the first five minutes when I throw up on the mark?" Clint chuckled a bit at this. "Five minutes? Really? You think you'd be able to make it that long?" She scoffed. "Oh, like you would last longer. If you were sick on the job you would probably surrender yourself just to get a nap in a prison cell, when I broke you out."

Clint did not argue this. "Um, gee I don't even remember the last time Coulson and I talked about sick days. Ar you sure you really need one? It sounds like this is the kind of thing I might need to fill out paperwork for." Annoyance coursing through her, feeling sicker by the minute Natasha practically snarled into the phone "Clint. Figure this out with Coulson, or I am going to find you and make sure you get whatever screwed up virus is bad enough to get me sick." She hung up after that, and then somehow she was back in her bed, a knife in one hand, in a fevered uneasy sleep.

She was startled awake by the realization someone else was in her room, she threw the knife without thinking, opening her eyes when she heard his laugh. "Oh my gosh, Nat, I'm trying to help you, could you please NOT kill me? Just, don't do anything awful for like one minute, ok?"

Natasha was feeling worse, her throat was killing her, and for a second she actually thought she might throw up when she sat up and the room tilted sickeningly around her. "What the hell Barton, you're LUCKY I didn't kill you. Who the heck let you in here?" He lifted an eyebrow at her, and dropped an armful of grocery bags on the counter of the small kitchenette tucked in the corner of the room. "Um, I let myself in? Don't worry, you're lock was extremely hard to pick. It took me almost a whole minute, that's rare."

Natasha groaned, and whipped a pillow at his head. Unlike the knife he had dodged, this missile landed right on target. "Go away! I just need to sleep, let me rest you idiot, just, leave me alone!" Clint whipped the pillow back at her. "No! You are sick, and since I sure as heck know you aren't going to take care of yourself, I need to take care of you. Have you even had any medicine yet?" Natasha wrapped the thin Shield issued blanket around herself, wondering if this was a crazy fever dream. "What? No. I don't like medicine, I'm fine, my body should fight the virus off by tomorrow."

Clint searched through the bags he had brought in, and then tossed a small bottle at her. "Here, Coulson sent me to the Shield pharmacy to get you those. He said that if you don't take them, he's putting you on desk duty for the next month." Rolling her eyes, then wishing she hadn't, Natasha twisted the top of the bottle off. "If I take these will you leave me alone?"

The archer was emptying the bags, and taking stock of what he had bought. "What? No! I'm here to take care of you. If I leave you alone who's going to do that? Take two of the pills, you get more in three hours." Natasha shook the bright blue pills into the palm of her hand, and stared at them in a fever induced haze for a couple seconds. "I don't need anyone to take care of me." She mumbled, jerking back in surprise when Clint was suddenly at her side holding out a glass of water. She grudgingly accepted it, and swallowed down the three hard little pills. "There, will you leave now?"

Clint looked concerned as he stared down at her. "Nat, no. I'm not leaving, you need someone to help you get better. Come on, let me help you?" He was standing over her bed, looking down at her. It gave Natasha a sudden flashback to the very first time he had offered to help. When she'd been holding an empty gun in her hand, had an arrow pressed against her forehead, and was staring up at a man who had offered to help her begin a new life. She blinked and the flashback was gone. Suddenly she felt cold.

She didn't have the energy to fight this anymore. "Whatever Barton, stay if you want. Just don't blame me when you get whatever freaky virus got me- And don't die from it or anything. Fury would never let me live that down." Natasha was violently cold now, she suddenly shivered, and bit her lip to stop her teeth from chattering. Clint saw this, and walked back to the large bags he had carried in. He searched through them for a few minutes, opening one then the other, before he finally found what he wanted. Clint pulled out a large, fluffy, very pink blanket and walked towards Natasaha with it. She closed her eyes, and grimaced. It hurt to talk, but she had to say something.

"You have to be joking." Clint chuckled at this. "Nope, it was the softest, most comfortable blanket that I could find. Want me to go find some paint or something and make it black?" Natasha ignored this, and grabbed the blanket from him. It WAS comfortable- Too bad it physically hurt her eyes to look at the obnoxiously bright pink that it was.

But it was soft, and warm, and oh- Ok, she couldn't keep her eyes open now…

When Natasha woke up, the clock on the wall said she had been sleeping for a few hours. She didn't feel much better though, if anything she felt worse. Clint was sitting at the table next to the foot of her bed (This was seriously a small room.) and watching something on his laptop. The counter in the corner was covered in what looked to be at least ten kinds of juice bottles, a case of water was on the floor, medicine bottles and what looked to be vitamins were all over the table Clint was sitting at, and why did it look like a vegetable truck had exploded in her tiny never used kitchen?

"Clint- what the heck, are you cooking something?" His head snapped up as he looked away from the computer screen, he grinned when he saw her. "You're up! How do you feel? Do you want some water, maybe juice? I got like every kind the store had, wasn't sure what you would like. Do you know carrot juice is apparently thing? I never heard of it but it looks pretty ok, wanna try some of that? You need to stay hydrated, it will help you feel better. That's what the dude who gave me your medicine said. Oh, speaking of that, you slept for like four hours- Time for more pills!"

Still not feeling well, Natasha closed her eyes against the relentless torrent of Clint's conversation. "What- Um, water's fine. Are you cooking something?" As she asked this a second time, Natasha had her own question answered as she noticed a pot of SOMETHING was bubbling away on the stove that she had used maybe twice in the years she had lived here. Clint grabbed a water bottle, and handed it to her as he sat down on her bed and pulled the bottle of pills out of his pocket. "Oh, yeah. I thought that soup might help make you feel better."

Natasha painfully swallowed the pills, and stared at her partner in disbelief. "You know how to make soup?" He shrugged, and as if without thinking brushed a few limp strands of sweat matted sleep tousled hair out of her face. But he still looked at her as if she was the most amazing thing he had ever seen, and Natasha had to close her eyes again because she was not feeling well enough to think about that. She avoided thinking about how he felt about her anyway, but now, when she was flustered and disoriented, it was best to push any and all thoughts about Clint Barton and his feelings to the very back of her mind.

Clint seemed to sense her discomfort, because he pulled his hand away from her face, and let it drop down to fiddle with the blanket he had brought her.  
"Um, yeah I know how to make soup, it's like the easiest thing to make ever. You just- buy a bunch of soupy stuff that would taste good together, let it cook in a pot all day, and maybe throw some noodles in it when you think it's almost done. It's easy, I bet you could even make it Romanoff. Are you hungry? Wanna try some of my creation? You'll like it, it has awesome stuff like spinach, and chicken broth, and cool looking veggies I didn't know the names of. Wanna try some? Even if you don't want to, you should. So that you don't hurt my feelings of course, and also so that you get some food in your system. It will make you feel better."

Natasha just shrugged at this, and Clint leapt up, and grabbing a bowl stirred the soup for a few seconds, before pouring some of it out for her. "Do you want to sit at the table, or are you still feeling bed bound?" Natasha had just taken a swallow of the water he'd given her, and paused, considering. "Um, lets stick to the bed. I'm pretty tired." Clint nodded at this, and handed over the soup to his partner with a spoon and a smile. Natasha subtly investigated the contents of the bowl, and was trying to decide if she really wanted to eat it, when to her surprise Clint sat down next to her on the bed with his own bowl of soup. Apparently when she said she wanted to eat on the bed, that meant THEY would eat on the bed. Whatever, if he wanted to be this close to her and get sick, that was his stupid problem. Idiot.

"Ok, do you like it? Have you tried it yet?" He asked excitedly, actually stealing part of the hideously pink blanket draped over her lap, and tucking it over his legs. Natasha was too tired to argue about this, so she just lifted a spoonful of the soup to her mouth and cautiously tried it. It was actually amazingly good. Not that she would tell him that. "Does Shield know you can cook?" She asked instead. "Seems like a skill that could really help you out on an undercover job or something." Clint snorted at this, but he was smiling as he started slurping down his soup. "Nah, I can't cook, not really. I know how to make soup, and pancakes, and that's about it."

Natasha lifted an eyebrow at him."You make pancakes?" Clint smirked, and stirred his spoon around his bowl. "Oh yeah, in all kinds of shapes too. Squares, hearts, mickey mouse ears, flowers, um, circles, I should show you sometime."

The two of them ate in silence, then Natasha just couldn't eat anymore, and Clint was done with his third bowl somehow. He cleaned up the kitchen, and she curled back up into her new blanket, wondering what would happen next. She couldn't say she was totally surprised when Clint dragged the table with his laptop on it in front of the bed, and asked her what kind of movie she felt like watching.

Before long he had put in Finding Nemo (You'll love it Nat, this movie is iconic, and funny, and has talking fish, it's awesome!) and they were both sitting up against the wall her bed was against, watching the movie together. Somehow the blanket started to shift over to Clint's side, and before long it was wrapped around both of them. Natasha didn't mind, she was cold again, the extra warmth of him was nice.

By the time Nemo was heading off to his first day of school, Natasha found her head had somehow come to rest on Clint's shoulder. By the time Marlin was talking to a blue fish about finding his son, Clint had his arm wrapped around her, pressing her up against him. And before the sharks had even made it into the movie, Natasha was asleep again. Her partners arm wrapped around her, resting up against him, still feeling sick, but for once in her life feeling totally safe.

When she woke up the next morning, Natasha's fever had broken. She didn't feel like she was at the top of her game, she might need to take another day off, but she no longer felt like someone might have poisoned her. When she woke up, Clint's arm was still wrapped around her, She was still curled up against his side. He hadn't moved once during the night, although his position could hardly be called comfortable. Natasha wasn't sure what to do…. Slip away and leave? No, duh this was her room. Wait for him to wake up and pretend she hadn't realized this had happened? Try and go back to sleep?

Finally, she decided what to do. Natasha gently poked Clint in the side a few times, then nudged him less gently until he woke up. When he finally was awake, he looked confused for a minute, then smiled when he looked at her. "Hey….. Your fevers gone?" She smiled at this, nodded. "Yeah, so is my sore throat. I'm not 100% ok, but at least I don't feel like I'm dying anymore." They both chuckled at this. The both knew what it really felt like when you thought you might be dying. A fever and sore throat were nothing compared to that.

They were silent for a couple of beats, then Natasha rolled her shoulders, Clint pulled his arm away. Then, she smiled at him. "So…. Do you really know how to make pancakes?"

Please review!


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